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online business

You may kind of look at your home business as a ‘hobby’ because you already work a full-time job. However if you don’t want to waste your precious time there are some things that you can do to ‘train’ yourself to get and stay serious. The home office environment can be one that is more relaxed and comfortable than a regular job. However you are accountable to create a business atmosphere during the hours you are working.

Maintaining a professional space starts with having a clearly delineated area that is only your office. Even if this means only a desk in the corner of another room, that space should be used exclusively for business. It should be organised and neat at at least two points in your work day – the start and end. The less time you spend shuffling through a pile of paper to find something the more time you have to both be productive and to relax when you are done.

It is very important that your home office space is healthy. This means for one thing, well-lit. It has been proven that people are more productive and positive with bright lighting. If at all possible to have windows open then you also have air, which has been proven to be necessary for all life. Get some whenever you can. You also need good, indirect light for your work area.

Your eyes are under a strain especially if your home business is a second ‘job’. Be sure to look away from your computer to something as far away as you can at least once every hour or so to decrease the strain on your eyes and corresponding muscles from focusing on one small area too long.

Be sure to have your eyes checked often. If you need glasses for the computer or reading, get them and wear them. Having tinted lenses really helps with the burning glare of the computer screen and florescent lights. Having less eye-strain will make your work easier.

Seriously, there are conditions of the eye that are completely controllable if not curable – but only if you catch them in time. You only have two eyes and you need both of them ideally. So treat them as a precious gift.

Another thing that can cause you to be distracted and less focused, is not having the correct chair. Be sure your chair arms line up directly with your keyboard and mouse. Your arm should not be down or up – straight forward and flat is the best way not to put pressure on your wrists. If you don’t have a footstool, you can use a phone book because lifting your feet slightly puts less strain on your lower back from sitting for hours on end.

You may take all these things for granted and believe they are not important; but the most important element of building anything is the foundation. You want to start with good habits and make sure you are taking care of the boss (you) so that everything runs smoothly and successfully. These things don’t always come naturally, but need to be cultivated.

All of the skills you have gained from your training and experience in your working life are all relevant to starting a business. There are some specific skills that you should acquire as you go along in your online business endeavour. Just as you learned on the job by experience you will do the same with whatever you focus your energy on.

Hands down the easiest way to get in there and start learning how to earn money online, is by being part of an affiliate program. You need to learn how to do marketing and advertising online, as well as how to write and communicate. With the affiliate marketing program business model, thankfully what you don’t need right off the bat is knowledge of how to develop, program and produce a product to sell; or need to know how to build your own organisation and membership system.

Obviously developing a product or program yourself is time and money intensive. Probably more people would try to start a business if they knew they didn’t have to invest their resources this seriously without the benefit of any formal training or experience in this area. Everything in life is a gamble, but it is always best to be conservative and not to ‘gamble with more than you can afford to lose’ – because there are never any guarantees.

There are different kinds of affiliate programs and if you don’t feel comfortable earning commissions from referring people, then you can focus on selling the products and services provided by that program. These can be digital or physical products. Having multiple ways to earn money from one program is a great thing if people will fully engage in it. You can theoretically start earning money right away, keeping in mind that this usually involves marketing and advertising first.

This kind of program will supply you with an ID and a link that they give you to advertise along with a web page that is all ready for you to use. No programming or technical skills are required. You just set up your account and they will give you what you need to start. Most if not all affiliate programs also provide some level of training or coaching as well as possibly the use of some resources. You pay your membership dues which are usually very reasonable although there is a wide range as far as cost.

Another form of affiliate marketing would be where you work directly for a manufacturer selling their products by ‘drop-shipping’. You see some of the oldest home businesses in this niche – such as selling beauty or health products for example. Even though you don’t have to buy an inventory or deliver things to customers, these type of businesses may charge you for all materials you use such as order forms, brochures, etc. So while tangible products may be easier to sell, and have a reputation that you can benefit from, it is not as inexpensive for a start-up as a purely online-based business.

When you stop to consider how much of your life is spent being involved in your job, it is shocking. There is rushing to get ready for work, hurrying to get to work on time, getting all your work done, getting back home in rush hour, getting to sleep so you can get up on time to start the whole rut over again. Really, the only other activity that gets as much time as work is sleep if you can squeeze it in! You really must, you know because if you collapse from the stress and exhaustion who will do all that you do?

If you have small children it is even more effort to get to work, not to mention you do have responsibilities to create a ‘home’ and to be there for your family. While as adults we may realise the necessity of working to support our families and we may even try to make our kids understand, to a child’s mind the only thing that seems to stick is you are not there. When you think about it, to a kid it is their waking hours when you are away at work. Nice touch to be able to spend an hour or two with them out of a 24-hour day.

This is why, particularly for people with kids that it makes so much sense to work at home one way or the other; either by convincing your employer to at least let you work from home part-time or by starting your own business. When you start to consider other things besides time, like money, you have another whole level of reasoning of why it would be best if you can make the arrangements to work at home.

Let’s calculate how much you spend on commuting/traveling to and from work, which usually is not in any way repaid to you by your employer. This calculation should include public transit costs or gasoline, and if you drive, add the parking, bridge tolls, and auto maintenance. Then there are costs that come in the ‘getting ready for work’ category, such as grooming, clothing, dry cleaning, etc.; along with eating lunches out unless you have time to make a bag lunch.

If you have small children you are likely paying a large percent of your income for child care at the minimum. Again this is in addition to the fact that your child is growing up without your presence most of the time. Not to make you feel guilty as it is a fact of life, even with two parent households, it is necessary financially to have two incomes; but again they just don’t really understand.

When you work at home your time is really your own. Not that you can slack off because you really do need to work at your business aggressively, especially if self-employed. But the point is you can work your job around your life instead of the job running your life 90% of the time. That means if you want to do your work at night, or half in the morning and half at night, or maybe have a day off in the middle of the week, that is up to you. You can then make time for your kids activities and to participate with them – and still get your work done on time!

The main reason people fail at online business is said to be because they quit too soon, without giving it a fair chance. The underlying reasons for this are that they (a) Believe there is some sort of magic about the Internet that will allow them to succeed by osmosis; (b) Want something for nothing, meaning they are not willing to really work at it. (c) Do not actually have a realistic plan of action that includes investing their time and effort; (d) Do not treat it seriously as they would a job.

Let’s examine each of these things in a little more depth.

(a) Belief in magic. It is true that some terminology may lead someone to feel that things will be a lot easier and faster than they really are. This is where normal people should employ whatever common sense and logic they may have. Understand that the statements are addressed to the public at large. There is a broad spectrum ranging from those with skills, resources and previous experience, all the way to people brand new to the Internet, computers and/or sales and marketing.

Many statements are telling us that it is POSSIBLE – and it is POSSIBLE for the first group who have experience. Does this say it is IMPOSSIBLE without it? No, not at all, but being realistic, they will need to accept that fact that they have to learn and get some experience in order for the eventuality of success to happen for them. If they are willing and able to accept this then they have a chance to succeed with an online business.

(b) Something for nothing. People may feel that they are doing all they need to do by joining an affiliate program and paying the monthly dues. However if nothing else is done to promote the business after that then it is the same as doing nothing. Having a link with an ID does absolutely nothing without promoting it aggressively by marketing and advertising.

Yet some people feel entitled to everyone else doing everything for them and they just sit back and wait for the money to roll in. They have a very long wait because without their active participation nothing will ever happen. They are very willing to accept anything that is free which is meant to help them get started. If they don’t see anything tangible at the end of the trial period they are out of there, often with very unkind things to say about the program when it did not produce magical results for them instantly.

The correct attitude for someone who is sincerely trying to start a business would be gratitude for the opportunity, and a real effort to make proper use of the resources that were shared with them in good faith. They need to understand reality and the fact that nobody achieves wealth without work other than lottery winners and heirs to fortunes. If it seems so effortless for the ‘guru’s with their sensational stories, you are not reading the part where they struggled uphill for years to achieve what they have now.

It is true some don’t elaborate on that so you have to be realistic in your own thinking to be sure you are not mislead. An important thing to realize is they were for the most part not born with ‘a silver spoon in their mouth’ – had no special privileges or superior intelligence – and they don’t owe you anything even if they did – other than to honor their promises and guarantees.

(c) A realistic plan. This would include having a definite business plan just in so far as what exactly you need to learn to do. You need to define in detail the whats, whens, hows and whys. What exact steps you need to take to do all the necessary things in conducting a professional business. Do you have what you need to do that? If not take steps to find out how to get it.

(d) Do not treat it seriously. You must be disciplined and focused if you want to achieve anything with your online business. You have to stay motivated even though you may not see any results at first. Just because you can work on your own time schedule does not mean skip it or put it off until ‘tomorrow’. You need to include a work schedule in your plan and be committed to it. Then work it out.

There are many things to consider in determining whether starting a home business is feasible for you. Some things may seem obvious, others not so much. The first thing to do is discover the right mindset.

You want to keep an open mind – open to all possibilities, which is the opposite of being skeptical or negative. At the same time you need to be realistic though. Be sure to do your due diligence so that you don’t make the wrong decision that causes you to take the wrong action, such as taking a gamble with more than you can afford to lose.

Life does involve taking risks but you want to minimize the risk by being informed and not rushing or acting from your emotions rather than your logic. Not gambling with more than you can afford to lose of course is a wise decision. Taking a few small risks may be necessary to get anywhere in this life.

For example losing $10-20 to take a chance that you will find something you need would be unfortunate, but will not ruin you. On the other hand gambling with the month’s rent money would be disastrous if you lost it, so don’t even go there. Don’t speculate, imagining you will get your money back in time to pay the rent. What if you don’t? Then what?

So starting with yourself you need to determine what you want to do, and you need a few more details than ‘to make money from home’. Do you like marketing and/or sales? If you have never done it before would you like to learn how and accept that there will be work involved and it may be unpaid work until you get going?

If you are not crazy about marketing and sales that is understandable and so you should decide what it is that you could do to earn money from home. However you need to understand that whatever the business is, if you want to find customers and make money you will need to do a certain amount of marketing and advertising to generate sales whether you love it or hate it!

Ideally you could pay for some services in this regard but the truth is most people starting a home business are doing it because they don’t have enough money. Typically they start out with a small operating budget and as such need to learn how to do things for themselves.

Note that marketing and selling on the Internet is probably 150% less expensive than offline; (think in terms of saving for example on paper, printing, postage, phones, etc). Just as a home business is 250% less costly than paying rent in a storefront or office building; (all you need is some space and a computer with an Internet connection).

Almost everything you need to do to promote your business online can be done for free if you are willing and able to devote your time consistently. Exactly WHAT your business will be will determine how much it would cost you to do it.

For example you may want to sell some products like a ‘manufacturer’s representative’, selling products that are technically owned by others – an ‘independent consultant’; Or you may wish to create your own products – anything from software to arts & crafts gifts; or provide a service such as web design, ghostwriting, search engine optimization, customer service or technical support.

Now just because you don’t know exactly how to do something that seems attractive to you does NOT mean you can’t do it. It just means you will have to learn or you will need to partner up with somebody who can help you with that particular facet of developing your home business plan.

There are several conceptual issues that seem to confuse people who try to build a business where they can work at home. Literally the word ‘w-o-r-k’ seems to confuse some people from different perspectives. While working at home is not a ‘j-o-b’ you still need to take it seriously and actually do the w-o-r-k.

Some will balk at a business plan the minute they realise that it does involve work. They want so to believe that they can get something for nothing, that there is a magic sauce, that they can just posture as a home business entrepreneur and thereby attract money.

While it is true we may have an aversion to work because of hostile work environments and the jobs we have all had to take in order to survive, there is never an excuse for laziness or slacking, and it really can be fatal to a new home business because it will never get off the ground.

At first we do need all the information we can get, but there comes a point where we need to put that information into action. Don’t use the excuse that you can’t actually do anything yet because you don’t know enough. Do what you can as soon as you can, you will learn more as you go. While you need a plan there is nothing better than taking action when it comes to starting a business.

While we do need to learn, we likely will not make money just from learning, but only from employing the information we acquire to promote and develop a business. That is why it is so important that we don’t get stuck at square one while we are learning. It is true that people get stage fright and they have a fear of failure. There is a great saying to keep in mind and that is that ‘the road to success is littered with failures’. Meaning, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep moving forward, on to the next quest.

The key to success is not giving up. Keep trying. Try something different. Go about things in a different way. Check (and fix) your attitude if necessary. This might be the most difficult task you will have when you start a business at home. You must be determined so that you won’t be affected negatively when you do not see tangible results right away (which is the norm).

It takes time to develop business, and you need to be very aggressive about it. Never ‘rest on your laurels’. You have to stay motivated no matter if you are tired, dejected, busy or even not feeling well. While it may be more difficult to go to a job when we don’t feel good, we would have to be seriously ill not to be able to log on to our computers that are right there in our home office. Even if all you can squeeze out is an hour. Spend the time wisely.